It was dark, very dark. Brittany could feel herself regaining consciousness, stirring slightly in place. Was it all a dream? It must have been. Why else would she be waking up?
As she moved, she could hear the cheers of pikmin all around. At first, she didn't think of it as too big of a deal before she noticed one very important detail.
Her helmet was gone.
Brittany opened her eyes and sat up fast with a yelp. As she took a look around, she saw that her perspective of color was… off. The sky was an odd dull red, and what little grass there was appeared to be navy blue. There were winged pikmin all around her; Despite their lack of facial features, they seemed overjoyed to see her awake and moving. Brittany, however, was more confused and scared than anything. If she didn't have her helmet, shouldn't she have suffocated? More importantly, WHY wasn't she suffocating?
Unless… Oh no.
Brittany slowly gave her own face a quick pat before reaching up her head. She felt her hand bump into something protruding from the back of her head.
Oh, no.
Brittany slowly tugged the strange protrusion into her line of view. The thing turned out to be a long, slender stem that ended in a leaf.
A pikmin stem.
Brittany could only stare in shock for a while, slack jawed. The expression she wore was almost comical. The winged pikmin all looked at one another in confusion and slight concern before turning back to her.
After a few minutes, Brittany started laughing out of fear and disbelief at the situation, startling some of the pikmin. This couldn't be happening. She had to be dreaming. This wasn't real. Her laughter slowly died down and she shook her head before examining herself with a frown. Her suit was now loose-fitting and hung off of her, making it obvious she had lost quite a bit of weight. While her boots still fit, her gloves were the worst offenders and constantly slid off her hands every time she moved. Brittany made a mental note to take them off once she was done processing this development. She then turned to the pikmin and looked them over as they stared back, watching her with unblinking eyes. She thought it was a little creepy.
"U-uh…" She found it was hard to say what she wanted to. Perhaps it was the shock of dying and getting resurrected in such little time, or perhaps it was just because she couldn't think of anything at the moment. A few of the pikmin tilted their heads and made little squeaks in curiosity.
Brittany smiled awkwardly and said, "Um… Hello?"
The pikmin all squeaked cheerfully back. Brittany could understand their cute little squeaks as, of course, "Hello!" or "Hi!" She briefly wondered if it was because she was now part pikmin.
With a deep breath, she asked, "I… died, right? And you all brought me back? I-is that correct?"
Several pikmin in the group nodded, the others following suit. Some made squeaks of affirmation.
"Y-you did? But… why?"
One pikmin raised its little arm towards Brittany. There was a chorus of squeaks that sounded like "Brittany" and "Friend." Brittany looked surprised.
"I'm… A friend?"
The pikmin all squeaked happily in response.
"So… That's why you made me into this form? Because you think of me as a friend…?"
More affirmative squeaks. Brittany had to admit, the pikmin were sweet, even if their idea of a gift scared the everloving heavens out of her.
"Then-"
Brittany jumped as she heard the growling of nearby predators. She would have to save it for later. Right then her concern was getting out of there. She looked up at the group before reaching for her glove and pulling it off, revealing a small black hand with tapered fingers. She took off the other glove as well and threw them both away, somewhat content now that her hands had been freed.
"I'll ask later. Let's go. It's almost sunset."
The Pikmin all nodded and flew into the onion. Brittany reached behind herself and grabbed the now-useless life support system, taking it off her suit and giving it a look over. There was a large hole near the bottom. This, she surmised, was where the leak had sprung. Of course, she wouldn't be needing it any longer. She threw aside the system and left it to clatter against a rock as she approached the onion, ready to face whatever would happen during her new life.
Although Brittany tried to seem confident, there was a nagging feeling at the back of her head that she had forgotten something highly important. However, she felt that whatever it was, it could wait until the morning. She walked up to one tendril and reached out to grab hold of it, hesitating when she spotted tiny hairs all over the tendril. It grossed her out, but she didn't really have room to complain. With a sigh and a nose wrinkle, she gripped onto the tendril, trying not to think about the hairs too much, and climbed towards the entrance of the onion, wondering what it would be like inside. Would they all be packed in like a can of fish, or would they all have their own little space? She hoped it wouldn't be the former. She wasn't sure she could handle the resulting claustrophobia, given everything else that's happened.
She made the final ascent and crawled into the hole. She could have sworn that she had suddenly shrunk in size just before entering. Then again, it might have been a trick of the light. Brittany let go of the tendril and walked into the onion, the tendril retracting and the entrance closing behind her.
To her surprise, the onion was a lot larger inside than it looked on the outside. Brittany guessed that it could hold thousands of pikmin if there were that many. There was a thick pillar of vines and pipes in the center, with several small bulbs hanging off of them. Brittany was slightly nervous as the onion had rows of hallways with barely enough room to maneuver, and it was not helping matters when she noticed that the halls were all dotted with small holes that were capped with a thin, gelatinous cover. The pikmin all seemed eager to get into these holes. Oddly enough, in spite of her disgust and fear, she also felt a slight wave of calm and an instinctual urge to hop in as well. She wondered if her conversion affected her brain more than she knew.
One pikmin touched the gel cap, scrutinizing it before making a satisfied sound and standing on it. Brittany jumped in surprise when the cap suddenly opened and dropped the pikmin in the hole, the cap resealing around the pikmin's stem. Several more pikmin scrambled to find their holes and there was a slight flurry of activity as they all went to sleep (or at least, that's what Brittany thought they were doing.)
Soon, Brittany was standing alone in the onion, surrounded by the stems of resting pikmin. Part of her didn't want to set foot in the hall, but another part of her was gently urging her to go for it. As she puzzled, she felt that wave of calm overtake her again, stronger than before, and before she knew it she was on autopilot, walking through the halls and trying to find the right hole. She halted at one cell that was slightly larger than the others and reached down to touch it. This one… She knew it was right for her.
With a quick glance around to make sure everyone was sleeping (or whatever pikmin did to recuperate for the day,) Brittany unzipped her space suit and wiggled out of it, revealing her new form as a pikmin, complete with pointed toes as she kicked off her boots. A pair of small, translucent wings sprung out of her back as the suit slipped off. Brittany was a little surprised at her sudden change, but didn't say anything as she took off her glasses and gingerly placed them on top of the suit before looking at the hole. Why was she doing this? She was having doubts again, worried about what would happen if she went in. Before she could back out of it, a thought struck her; It will be okay.
Biting her lip, Brittany tentatively stood on the cap. She yelled as it plunged her inside and closed up, leaving her in near-darkness. She looked around and noticed that she was in a small cell of some kind, and the walls seemed to be made of some kind of organic material that looked to be a mix between brain matter and vines. This led her to wonder if the onion was some kind of sentient life form. As if on cue, she felt something below her move and adjust, lifting her up slightly before the walls closed in on her. Brittany started inwardly panicking at this sudden movement. What was she thinking when she went down here? For all she knew, it could have not recognized her as an actual pikmin and would kill her right then and there. She tried to struggle and get out of her cell as the walls shrunk further and further, trying desperately to free herself. Before she was completely engulfed, she knew that this was what she wanted and calmed down, the pikmin side of her taking over and assuaging her fears. It would be okay. This was what she wanted. This was what she needed.
Everything went completely black. Brittany noticed that, although she was stuck in place due to the cap holding her stem, she had near-complete freedom of movement, with the mass adjusting as she moved. The feeling of the walls was oddly comforting; It was less like she was being held in vines and more like she was in a warm, albeit slimy, blanket from head to toe. Wherever the walls touched her, she felt slight tingles that were… energizing? Refreshing? She had no idea what to call it. Either way, she calmed down once she knew that she wasn't going to die.
She yawned and felt her eyes drift. She had spent so much time being freaked out over something that should have been impossible that she had neglected her own basic needs. She closed her eyes and adjusted slightly, the walls reforming as she went, and drifted off into a deep, albeit uneasy sleep for the night.
